


Topia

by frimfram



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, bakery!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 09:56:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11780742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frimfram/pseuds/frimfram
Summary: Immediately post-Spoils of War, this is about either destiny and the afterlife, permeable multiverses, or a hypoxic, drowning Jaime Lannister basically inventing Stoke Newington. So, you know, exactly what the fandom is crying out for really.(I've tagged this Major Character Death but that's actually somewhat in the eye of the beholder.)





	Topia

As soon as the water closes over them he’s beyond the smoke, and the screaming. The water's confusion separates them. He fights for air until he can’t and then he sinks, beyond the terrible light from the flames, beyond the image of the queen with the bolt and the beast with the jaws. Beyond the defeat and the loss. Beyond his name. Beyond Cersei. And then even beyond the cold – the deep River Mander isn’t chill, it’s a suffusion of black warmth and his sight is giving out, and Brienne’s holding him as he’s going under, just like before, and he falls into benediction and he remembers – 

She takes his hands – his hands – and she shakes him.

His body gasps in air for him and opens his eyes.

It’s bright. The sheets are impossibly white and the display on the bedside radio says 07:30, numbers ranged in an orderly row. 

“You,” Brienne says, scrubbing his hair and kissing him, “need to stop eating cheese last thing at night.” She pushes herself back from him a way, her legs twined round his still, and smiles a huge and indulgent smile.

He blinks at her. His hands are gripping the sheets and his lungs are splitting. 

“Let me see that,” she frowns, grabbing him by the wrist, and she pulls it up and scrutinises it – the Fitbit locked around it. “Your sleep chart is going to look like a seismograph.” She hauls herself out of bed, kissing him on the forehead, and wraps herself in the white robe that skims her knees. “I’ll put the coffee on. What were you dreaming about?”

This is their bed, and those are his glasses on the shelf over it, and there’s his vinyl collection and the row of potted aloes that Brienne has cultivated from thumbnail-sized cuttings, lined up on the window. There’s the Rothko print they bought on their fifth-anniversary New York trip. Brienne disappears down the hallway and there now’s the purposeful burr of the new bean-to-cup machine grinding into life.

“You,” he says, pulling himself upright, staring at Brienne’s phone lying on the table by the bed. She snores, but she says _he_ snores. She reads ridiculous Mercedes Lackey novels, but only on the Kindle so you can’t tell. She won’t put up any of the pictures of her bravery award ceremonies or frame her commendations from the superintendent. She’s vegan but doesn’t go on and on about it. “And other stuff.”

“Oh, and other stuff?” She’s back in the doorway, holding out a yellow mug, eyebrow raised. “Which was the bit that was making you gasp?”

He was dying. The army was burning. The thing had been the size of a – of nothing he’d ever seen; it was the body of it that had shocked him: the wings you could imagine, but that vast body, that huge scaled chest – and the smell – and there had been the Mad King’s daughter, tiny beside its monstrous flank, and the look on her face had been nothing like her father’s on that day he’d meant to burn them all.

“Coffee,” Brienne says, pushing the mug into his hands and kissing his ear. “And get a move on if you want first shower; I’ve got to be in early and you’ve got to open up the shop.” And she’s off back down the hall to the kitchen and soon the air smells of toast. Jaime sits for a minute, willing his breathing under control. He lets the morning light slant through the blinds onto his skin. The rumble of buses somewhere outside sets a mundane back note that somehow evens him out. His thudding heart begins to slow.

He showers, and amid the steam the world overlays itself onto the still-ringing visions. The self-righteous murmur of Radio Four winds in from the kitchen amid the water’s hiss. He turns the spray as hot as it will go and lets it scarify his skin, then flips it ice cold until the clean shock of it scours him blank. He dresses in jeans, brogues, and a shirt, polishes his glasses on his sleeve and doesn’t shave. He finishes the coffee and Brienne kisses him goodbye, her uniform in a bag bumping over her shoulder and a print linen dress on for the Tube ride to the station. She has never been more beautiful. “Want to spar tonight?” she says, scooping keys into her bag. “Might help you sleep better. Your kit’s on the airer.” He wraps his arms around her and crushes himself against her, breathing her, until she fake-knees him in the groin. “Go to work, you bloody workshy git,” she says, and with a squeeze to his backside she’s gone.

Their flat looms at him, and he leaves too.

The walk to the bakery leads through Victoria Park and the cherry blossom is brilliant against the sky. It’s warm, and the sun on his face demands nothing and offers amnesty. People pass. They’re calm, and quiet, and reasonable, and everyday. Reaching the stand of shops in the cobbled alley off the high street, he pushes up the grille at number 37, unlocks the door, and steps into the warm shop. His assistant is already there in the bakery at the back, turning out the first batches of the day, shaping, kneading, lining up the macarons. Jaime helps himself to a roll, splits and butters it, sinks into the bite and give of it in his mouth. He opens up to the first customers, sells a run of pastries and take-away sandwiches; a few self-employed types stop for coffee, squeezing themselves onto the handful of stools and their laptops onto the handful of tiny tables along the window. His regulars know him by name. The guy who sleeps in the park says good morning as he shudders his squeaky shopping trolley over the cobbles outside, and accepts a bacon roll on the house. The sun comes up over the top of the facing building and spills in at the window til the shopfront fills with warm yellow light.

And then, when the shop is busy with the hustle of bodies and the till is jangling and the air smells sweet and warm, a run of notes infects Jaime’s ear and he goes still, hands hovering over the till.  
One of the customers is humming.

It’s a man at the back of the press of bodies in the shop, sitting in the stool in the corner of the window. He’s facing away from Jaime, out toward the window, and the angle of his body obscures his profile. But he sprawls a little in the chair, one insolent foot up resting against the edge of the table, and his coat is brown and battered. And though he’s not humming loudly, the sound of it cuts through the agreeable mumble of the patrons at the other tables, the steam singing from the coffee machine, the birdsong that rolls in from the trees outside, the ding of the till. Jaime stares, every other sound muted as if underwater, and as the refrain reaches its chorus the man switches from humming to words – _“And now the rains weep o’er his hall, and not a soul to hear”_ – and he turns, and Jaime sees his weatherbeaten face. 

Bronn gives Jaime a tight and dangerous smile. 

Somehow the shop has emptied. 

At last, Jaime says “We’re closing.”

Bronn hikes his eyebrows and looks around in mock surprise. “Don’t look like closing time.” He puts his other foot up on the table and stretches out, folding his arms behind his head.

“I said we’re closing.” Jaime walks out from behind the counter into the now-empty shopfront, and stands over Bronn. He can feel a muscle ticking in his jaw. 

“Had any interesting dreams lately?”

Jaime grabs Bronn by the throat and pins him to the wall. 

“Steady,” chokes Bronn, grabbing at Jaime’s hands around his neck. “Don’t think – this sort of behaviour’s – what they go in for – here.”

“Get out,” Jaime says. He drags Bronn to the door and is bundling him over the threshold when they both hear the shriek, like a wagonload of swords scraping rock. The two of them freeze, bracing, crouching a little from the sky. 

It’s far off – no wing-beats – but it’s unmistakeable.

Bronn grunts, shaking off Jaime’s grip and straightening up. He sniffs. “Not much of a fantasy, is it?” He rolls his neck and squints critically into the shop. “A _bakery_? Get a bloody life.”

All of Jaime’s skin is bristling. “I don’t know who you are ¬–”

“Charming,” Bronn huffs, “after what I’ve done for you and your brother.”

“I’m an only child.”

Bronn snorts and nods in appreciation. “Convenient, that. Good thinking.” He peers at the macarons behind the counter. “This is what you fancy, then, is it? Not… tits and wine?” He spots the framed newspaper clipping behind the counter, Jaime and Brienne with arms around each other, beaming on opening day, and whistles. “Ah. Tits and _pastries_. Knew you wanted to fuck that one, though.” He grins at Jaime, for the split-second before Jaime gets him in a headlock this time. 

“Oi now,” Bronn struggles. “I saved your life!”

“You tried to,” Jaime hisses.

“Ah, you’re catching on, then.” With Jaime’s acquiescence, Bronn struggles free. “Going out in a blaze of glory, that was the idea, was it?” He rubs his neck and rolls his shoulders. His face is half-blackened with soot, and Jaime remembers the cheers when the bolt struck and the dragon began to fall. He remembers the gout of flame that swallowed up the ballista. He remembers the beginning of the glow in the back of the beast’s throat, the charred-meat stink, how the heat hit him before it even exhaled – the weight of the water, then, its pressure bursting in on his eardrums, his armour caging him, his chest too heavy –

Jaime sits down at one of the tables and drops his head into his hands.

“Told you to piss off back to King’s Landing,” says Bronn. “I would’ve.”

“You didn’t.”

Bronn tilts his head from side to side. “Still, now… you’re here.”

“I live here,” Jaime says, shaking his head to clear it. He grips the table, thumbs the rough grain of the wood. “This – this is real. That was all… that’s a horrible…”

“Then how come I’m here too?”

Jaime stares at him. 

Bronn sits down opposite him and spreads his hands. “Bad luck. It’s real. But,” he raises a forefinger, “least that means you’re not sick in the head enough to have dreamt it all up.” 

“But this is…”

“This… fuck knows what this is.” Bronn frowns around the shop, at the adverts on the pinboard: local bands who all wear glasses like Jaime’s, organic food boxes, mummy-and-me yoga, silent discos, flu jabs. “Not really heaven, is it? I’d not be here if it was.” He gives Jaime a manic grin. “Anyway,” he says. “I’ve not even got to the best bit yet.” He leans forward, and amid the filth blackening his face his eyes and teeth are weirdly bright. “You’re not done.” 

Jaime frowns. “What do you mean?”

“What it sounds like. That’s not how it ends. You’re not supposed to go out drowning in the Mander.” Bronn pushes back his chair, walks to the window and stares up at the sky. “Me neither.”

“Not _supposed_ to?”

“Don’t know how it works,” Bronn says. “Don’t know why. Just know we’ve got to go back.”

Jaime studies Bronn for a moment. He looks tired, and straightforward, and like he always has done. 

Jaime gets up and walks behind the counter, away from Bronn. He stares at the picture there, at Brienne. In it she’s smiling, a real, untroubled smile full of grace and honesty. It rained all day, the day they first opened up shop, but Brienne brought yellow and orange gerberas for every table and patrons came bustling in to sit around those sparse little suns. It worked. It flew. They’d done roaring business ever since. That night she wouldn’t agree to a celebratory fuck on the bakery counter – “don’t ruin your brand-new five-star hygiene rating” – and instead she had slammed him on the kitchen floor in their flat, and afterwards they’d eaten pho on the sofa and fallen asleep there together, her head on his chest.

He shuts his eyes, and now it’s Cersei he can see. Dickon Tarly through the smoke. Men collapsing in their armour. When he opens his eyes again, the shopfront swims in front of them.

Bronn’s hand drops onto his shoulder. “Maybe someday, eh,” he says, and in that moment they hear the dragon’s shriek again, vibrating the walls of the small shop and setting the cups and plates a-rattle. Jaime grips the counter. “Reckon there’s people out there meant for a happy eternity in a poky little bakery, don’t get me wrong,” Bronn says. “Just, not you.”

They hold their heads up as they walk back out into the street. Jaime looks at his hands – his hands – and has no weapon to draw. The streets aren’t quite deserted – there’s an older hijabi lady sitting on a bench across the road, and for a moment Jaime is sure her face is Olenna Tyrell’s, wearing a wry smile – and from somewhere unseen the dragon shrieks again. It’s an almost mechanical sound. They follow the cobbles back round to the high street and the scream wracks them again – they scan the sky for it, squinting against the brilliant sun, and as they surmount a bridge over some backwater tributary of the Serpentine they see it at last: foul and glorious, on top of them almost before they’ve taken in the span of its awesome wings. It blocks out the quiet and comfortable streets, the spring morning and the calm city. The flame pours down in a column and the cobbles themselves are burning, burning stone, until the bridge gives way. 

Black water. 

Absolution, almost in reach.

And surfacing again. Into smoke.


End file.
